A Meal With My Enemies On The Guest List

Sieger Koder's Breaking of the Bread

Katie Aikins, in an article in Hospitality magazine, reflects on her recent reading of the familiar words in Psalm 23, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies."

"I get to this line," she writes, "and it feels off. Shouldn't it be, 'God, I praise you because you have set a table before me in the absence of my enemies?' Why would we want to eat in the presence of our enemies? Wouldn't we lose our appetite? This is a psalm about the comfort of God's presence. Shouldn't that mean that there are no enemies around?"

Good question. I too have always thought this phrase meant that we good people would get to enjoy God's banquet in peace, while our enemies, looking on with envy, would be kept at a safe distance.

But Aikins insists that God's table is not "for members only". "There is no gate, no wall, around the table of God," she asserts. "One of the hardest things for us to grasp is that our enemies are invited to the table of God."

If this is so, we ought to be taking more seriously texts like "If your enemies are hungry, feed them."

In other words, we should be inviting them to come and share some good food with us, just as God does.